Yu Hua - Brothers

Song Gang stayed for two days at Baldy Li's place, but on the third morning his grandfather came, carrying a pumpkin on his back. He declined to come inside, preferring to stand outside, head bowed. Li Lan greeted him warmly, calling him Father and leading him inside by the sleeve. The old landlord blushed and shook his head. There was nothing Li Lan could do to persuade him, so she brought a stool outside and invited him to sit down. The old landlord declined and instead continued to wait patiently for Song Gang to finish his breakfast, moving only to place the pumpkin beside the door. When Song Gang emerged, his grandfather took him by the hand and, bowing slightly to Li Lan, led him away.

Baldy Li ran to the door and sadly watched Song Gang depart. As he walked Song Gang kept looking back sadly at Baldy Li, then he raised his arm above his his head and waved, and Baldy Li waved back.

After this, Song Gang came to town about once a month. He no longer came alone but, rather, accompanied his grandfather when he came to peddle vegetables. The two of them would set out for town before it was light, while Baldy Li was still sound asleep. As they entered through the southern gate Song Gang would run along the dark streets to Baldy Li's house, carrying with him two heads of fresh greens. Quietly leaving the greens at the door, he would run back to the market and sit by his grandfather's side, calling out, "Fresh vegetables!"

Song Gang and his grandfather would often finish with their peddling just as the sun was coming up. His grandfather, with empty baskets, would lead Song Gang by the hand and circle back to Baldy Li's house, where the two of them would stand quietly outside the door, listening for any stirring inside and wondering if mother and son had woken up yet. Li Lan and Baldy Li would invariably still be asleep, the two heads of greens still waiting by the door. So Song Gang and his grandfather would silently take their leave.

During that first year, every time Song Gang came to town he would bring Baldy Li a few White Rabbits, wrapping them in wutong leaves and leaving them under the stone stoop in front of the door. Baldy Li had no idea how many White Rabbits Li Lan had given Song Gang, but during that first year Baldy Li almost always had White Rabbits to look forward to.

After rising and opening the door, Li Lan would spot the dew-misted vegetables waiting outside and call out to Baldy Li, "Song Gangs been here!"

Baldy Li's first action would always be to flip over the stone and retrieve the candy, and then he would dash out into the street. Li Lan knew that Baldy Li wanted to see Song Gang, and therefore she wouldn't try to stop him. After finding no trace of Song Gang at the market, Baldy Li would immediately turn around and run toward the southern gate. A few times the brothers actually caught sight of each other there. Baldy Li would spy Song Gang in the distance, walking behind his grandfather and his baskets, and Baldy Li would shout at the top of his lungs, "Song Gang! Song Gang!"

Hearing him, Song Gang would turn around and shout, "Baldy Li! Baldy Li!"

Baldy Li would stand there, continuing to call out Song Gang's name. As he walked Song Gang would repeatedly look back at Baldy Li, waving and calling out his name. Baldy Li called out until he lost sight of Song Gang, and even then he continued calling out, "Song Gang! Song Gang!"

With every shout, he would hear echoes in the distance: "Gang … Gang … Gang …"

TIME DRIFTED silently and unnoticed past Liu Town, and before anyone realized it seven years had gone by. In Liu Town, a widow was not supposed to wash her hair for a month after her husbands death, and sometimes the custom would be extended to half a year. Li Lan stopped washing her hair altogether following Song Fan-pings death. For seven years she didn't wash it, instead slicking it down with oil. She would neatly comb her black, greasy hair and proudly walk down the main street with the kids of Liu Town trailing behind, taunting, "Landlords wife, Landlords wife …"

Li Lan never shed her proud smile. Though she and Song Fanping had spent only fourteen months together as husband and wife, for Li Lan it meant more than if it had been a lifetime. Seven years of not washing her hair, combined with the layers upon layers of oil she applied, resulted in a foul odor emanating from her head that grew increasingly noxious. At first it was just the house, which would smell like worn socks the moment she returned home; then the odor grew so strong that everyone would smell it as she walked down the street. Everyone in Liu Town now ran away from her. Even the kids who used to call her "Landlords wife" would cover their noses and run away, yelling, "That stinks, stinks …"

Li Lan s hair became her badge of honor. She wanted everyone to think of her always as Song Fanping's wife. After Baldy Li entered school, each time he had to fill out his fathers name, she always made him write "Song Fanping," after which he had to write "landlord" in the Family Class Background box. As a result, Baldy Li was maligned and abused at school, and his classmates all took to calling him Little Landlord. Aside from Li Lan and Song Gang, who would occasionally visit him from the countryside, no one else seemed to know his name was Baldy Li, and in the end even the teachers used his class designation to address him, as in "Little Landlord, stand up and read that passage."

When Baldy Li turned ten, he remembered that he had a birth father — the one who had drowned in the latrine while ogling women's bottoms. Baldy Li resolved to use his birth fathers name so he could escape the bad luck of being called a landlord. When he once again had to fill out a name for the blank under Father, he decided to resist and asked his mother, "What should I write?"

Li Lan, who was in the middle of cooking, was taken aback by Baldy Li's question. She looked at her son in confusion, then answered, "Song Fanping."

Baldy Li lowered his head. "I mean my other dad…"

Li Lan gave him a withering look and replied firmly, "You have no other dad."

Li Lan lived her identity as a landlords wife with pride — it kept Song Fanping alive in her heart. Her pride lasted seven years, until the year Baldy Li turned fourteen. That was the year Baldy Li was caught spying on women in the toilet. Li Lan immediately fell apart, and later, when once again Baldy Li had to fill out a form, she erased Song Fan-pings name and substituted a name that was entirely foreign to Baldy Li — Liu Shanfeng — and also changed the Family Class Background box from "landlord" to "poor peasant." After Li Lan handed the revised form to Baldy Li, she noticed he again erased "Liu Shanfeng" and "poor peasant" and replaced them with "Song Fanping" and "landlord." Fourteen-year-old Baldy Li no longer cared that he was a little landlord. Grumbling as he erased his birth fathers name, he said, "Song Fanping's my dad."

Li Lan stared at her son as if he were a stranger. His words shocked her. When he raised his head to look at her, she immediately looked down, mumbling, "Your birth fathers name was Liu Shanfeng."

"What Liu Shanfeng?" Baldy Li tossed out the words with contempt. "If he were my dad, then Song Gang wouldn't be my brother."

Ever since Baldy Li had become notorious for peeping in the women's toilet, he was no longer called Little Landlord and became known instead as Little Buttpeeper. His birth father, who had long been forgotten, together with his own notorious deed, was now ubiquitous again, like an excavated relic, and referred to by Baldy Li's classmates as Old Buttpeeper. Even the teachers adopted Baldy Li's new nickname, saying, for instance, "Hey, Little Buttpeeper, go clean the toilets."

Li Lan was once again trapped in her shame, just as she had been when her first husband had drowned in the public latrine. All the pride that Song Fanping had granted her suddenly dissipated. She no longer walked down the street with her head held high but instead became as fearful and timid as she had been fourteen years earlier. Now every time she went out she walked with her head bowed and turned toward the wall, feeling as though all eyes were upon her. She no longer wanted to go outside; even when she was home, she locked herself in, sitting on her bed like a bump on a log. Her migraines also returned, and her teeth once again chattered from dawn until dusk.